Russian Investigation

“Wasn’t I a Great Candidate?”: Inside Mar-a-Lago, Trump Burns as Mueller Brings More Charges

In a remarkable barrage of tweets, Trump attacked everybody but Russia for the fallout over the 2016 election. “They are laughing their asses off in Moscow,” he complained, while accusing his enemies of a witch hunt against him.

By Mark Wilson/Getty Images. Trump photographed attending a meeting in the Pentagon on January 18th.

Sequestered at Mar-a-Lago and without his usual golf outing to sustain him, Donald Trump spent much of the past 24 hours venting his frustrations with special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, following an indictment against 13 Russians accused of meddling in the 2016 election. In more than a dozen messages beginning Saturday afternoon and continuing into the night, Trump railed against the F.B.I., Democrats, General H.R. McMaster, the media, Barack Obama, and, naturally, Hillary Clinton. “If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams,” Trump tweeted Sunday morning, while claiming that he had never denied Russia’s involvement. “They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!”

Of course, Trump has repeatedly denied that Russia assisted his election, as Mueller’s indictment alleges, and continued to do so over the weekend. “There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election,” Trump said in one tweet. In another, he accused the “Fake News Media” of ignoring the fact that the Russian disinformation campaign had begun before he announced his candidacy. A few minutes later, he tweeted again, pointing to comments from a Facebook advertising executive who suggested the main purpose of the Russian campaign was to divide Americans, not to sway the election.

At no point did Trump say anything critical about the Russian agents who had launched the attack on America’s electoral and media institutions, or about Russia itself, which continues to conduct a cyber war against the United States. Instead, later Saturday night, the president excoriated the F.B.I., saying the bureau failed to stop a recent mass shooting at a local high school because it was too focused on Russia. “Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter,” he wrote. “They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”

Shortly before midnight, he tweeted again, chiding his national security adviser for disparaging Russia rather than Clinton, and describing a series of incidents and issues he believes represent the true threat against America. “General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!”

He then turned his wrath toward Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, the “leakin’ monster of no control,“ who often appears on CNN to discuss the White House’s inner workings. “He is finally right about something. Obama was President, knew of the threat [from Russia], and did nothing. Thank you Adam!”

The remarkable series of tweets evokes a man backed into a corner. Although the president and his allies have maintained that nobody on the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, many insiders within his orbit have expressed worries that Mueller’s probe will lead to more indictments. Already, the special counsel has leveled charges against Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort; Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates; former national security adviser Mike Flynn; and foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos. While Manafort and Gates have pleaded not guilty, Flynn and Papadopoulos have made arrangements to cooperate with prosecutors, and Gates is believed to be negotiating for a deal. Mueller has interviewed dozens of Trump’s aides and allies, including Hope Hicks,Reince Priebus,Steve Bannon, and others with direct knowledge of the campaign, and is believed to be particularly interested in a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. and a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer peddling damaging information about Clinton. Legal experts have suggested Mueller appears to be building a case of obstruction of justice, regardless of whether he also finds evidence of underlying crimes.

Mueller’s latest indictment says that some of the accused Russians communicated with “unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign”—language that is currently giving comfort to some in Trump’s inner circle. But the words Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein chose in describing the indictment should still worry the president: “There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity.” That leaves the door open to future indictments—potentially implicating Trump’s associates or even Trump himself.

Trump, who sees the Russia investigation as an attempt to delegitimize his presidency, seems determined to undermine Mueller, the F.B.I., and other elements of the Justice Department in anticipation of that possibility. It has also left him wounded, as he obsesses over his treatment on cable news, from within his palatial Palm Beach estate. “Now that Adam Schiff is starting to blame President Obama for Russian meddling in the election, he is probably doing so as yet another excuse that the Democrats, lead [sic] by their fearless leader, Crooked Hillary Clinton, lost the 2016 election,” he fumed Sunday morning. “But wasn’t I a great candidate?”